SkyMall, America’s favorite mail-order junk shop, is making its triumphant return to a seatback pocket near you. In fact, it’s already there. The world’s number one source for bug vacuums, Sasquatch statues and cat toilets has been redesigned as an insert in United Airlines in-flight magazine, Hemispheres. According to the Los Angeles Times, SkyMall paid to be included in the October issue (probably somewhere between the airport maps and the advertisements for plastic surgeons).
SkyMall sees you when you’re sleeping. (Terrible Yard Art: SkyMall.com)
Even before this latest development, SkyMall had already had more rumored comebacks than Guns ‘N’ Roses. The company filed for bankruptcy in January, but announced that it would be auctioning off its name and assets. A month later, Scott Jordan, the CEO of the annoyingly capitalized SCOTTeVEST, said that he wanted to relaunch the company as “a curated shopping journey” that would be less about portable dog spas and more about digital cameras, tour options or other travel- and destination-focused products. But when the SkyMall name was auctioned off, it was sold not to Jordan, but to C&A Marketing, the part owner of Polaroid and Ritz Camera (at the time, Jordan promised his own Mall in the Sky called Sky2Buy, but that idea seems to have fizzled).
So now SkyMall is really back, sort of. A C&A Marketing spokesperson told the Times that Hemispheres is currently the only in-flight magazine where you can presumably still buy a $2,449, 103-pound statue of a Velociraptor, although it is also an insert in Amtrak’s Arrive magazine, for trips in and around Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. And yes, it still has a website.
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